RETAIL
Uniqlo eyes Indian market
Fast Retailing Co’s Uniqlo chain of casual clothing aims to enter the Indian market “as soon as possible” to tap faster-growing economies to bolster sales. “We want to study details of the agreement between Japan and India right away,” Fast Retailing president Tadashi Yanai said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday, referring to the trade agreement that the two nations signed on Wednesday. “We want to enter India as soon as possible.” Fast Retailing, Asia’s largest clothing chain, plans to expand the number of Uniqlo stores overseas in an effort to boost sales sixfold to ¥5 trillion (US$60 billion) by 2020. Making Uniqlo’s ¥3,990 jeans available in India, where the government predicts economic growth of 8.6 percent this year, could help Fast Retailing stem its slowest sales growth in more than seven years. Separately, Uniqlo said yesterday it aimed to sell more than 10 million pairs of chino and cargo pants this spring and summer.
BROADCASTING
Comcast beats estimates
Comcast Corp, the cable company that took control of NBC Universal Inc last month, reported fourth-quarter profit and sales that beat analysts’ estimates and plans to boost its dividend and stock buyback program. Profit, excluding costs from the purchase of NBC Universal, was US$0.35 a share. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey predicted US$0.32 on average. Sales rose 7.2 percent to US$9.72 billion, topping projections of US$9.56 billion. Completing the NBC Universal deal gives Comcast’s financial position greater clarity, said Tom Eagan, an analyst at Collins Stewart LLC in New York. Last year, the largest US cable company lagged behind Time Warner Cable Inc and Cablevision Systems Corp in market performance. Investors were concerned regulatory conditions might limit the upside of the NBC venture. The Philadelphia-based company boosted its dividend to US$0.45 a share annually from US$0.38.
ENERGY
Crude soars past US$104
London crude prices extended gains to hold at two-and-a-half year highs of more than US$104 a barrel yesterday, as fresh Israel-Iran tension fed spreading unrest in the Middle East and stoked fears of a disruption of oil flows in the region. US oil gave up its morning gains to fall below US$85 a barrel, after industry data showed crude inventories rose last week, although the increase was lower than expected. Brent crude for April delivery rose US$0.27 to US$104.05 a barrel by 7:30am, after settling US$2.14 higher at US$103.78, its highest close since September 2008, and off an earlier high of US$104.52.
AUTOMAKERS
Honda issues global recall
Japanese automaker Honda yesterday said it was recalling 693,497 vehicles worldwide because of defective parts that could stall the engine and cause problems restarting in certain models. Honda spokeswoman Natsuno Asanuma said the recall would affect models of its Freed compact minivan, Fit compact car and City sedan, including about 170,000 of the Freed and Fit in Japan. The recall affects more than 220,000 units in Asia, mainly the ASEAN area, and about 156,000 in China, she said. No accidents associated with the defect have been reported, she said. Defective spring parts may deteriorate over time resulting in abnormal engine sounds and in the worst case, cause stalling and problems restarting.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts